Broadband News

TalkTalk continues to push LLU ADSL2+ coverage

TalkTalk has issued its latest quarterly results and while overall numbers of
broadband customers have only gone up by 8,000 there has been significant
growth in YouView customers and take-up of FTTC based fibre services.

The operator has 96% of its 4,071,000 customers on its LLU network, with 82%
on the full LLU network. This LLU network extends to around 95% of properties
in the UK via 2,798 exchanges (added 74 in the quarter). The number of fibre
customers has reached 95,000 adding 22,000 in the last quarter alone,
suggesting that demand is starting to increase. YouView appears to be the
driver at TalkTalk though with 390,000 customers using the hybrid FreeView/IPTV
device, an increase of 160,000 in the last quarter.

The fact that TalkTalk say that 95% are covered by their LLU network,
demonstrates part of the problem with the roll-out of the 2 Mbps USC and
superfast services in the final 5%, this 5% (1.4 million premises) is served by
around 2,700 exchanges if you are going to follow the traditional telecoms
wiring and ducting.